January 31, 2017

Donald Trump: Tech giant Cisco joins other US companies in slamming travel ban

Global technology giant Cisco has joined other US companies in slamming Donald Trump's immigration ban, adding to criticism from the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft in urging the Trump administration to reconsider the controversial travel measures.

President Trump's executive order has banned travel to the US from seven majority Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen.

Cisco's Australia and New Zealand managing director Ken Boal told the ABC the ban goes against long-held polices for diversity, respect and inclusion.

"There is concern, there's no doubt about it. There's a global impact and our first concern is for our employees that might be affected," Mr Boal said.

"We take a big part of our workforce to the US every 12 months and we have regular meetings over there so the ability to participate in those are quite core to employment at a lot of tech companies.

"We support a diverse workforce. We believe in the necessity to ensure security but at the same time there's a range of measures that are already being taken."

Mr Boal said the US-headquartered Cisco — which has almost 72,000 staff worldwide — was working with other companies to lobby the White House to reconsider the travel bans.

"Quite frankly the entire industry has concerns about how we're going to work under this new environment," he said.

"It's something that I think we're going to have to learn to deal with as the whole geopolitical environment is active right now."

Earlier this week, Microsoft warned the measures could hurt key recruitment for research and development; Apple said the company would not exist without immigration, while Google has launched a $US2 billion fighting fund.

James and Lachlan Murdoch — the chief executive and chairman of 21st Century Fox respectively — have also criticised the travel ban.

"21st Century Fox is a global company proudly headquartered in the US, founded by — and comprising at all levels of the business — immigrants," according to an internal memo provided to Forbes Magazine.

"We deeply value diversity and believe immigration is an essential part of America's strength."

The memo also offers assistance including legal aid to 21st Century Fox employees caught up in the travel ban while stopping short of directly criticising Mr Trump.

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